Why More Customers are Cutting the Cord

September 18, 2017

7:15 am

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Live TV streaming services are slowly becoming the norm, and that represents a major change to the status quo of the cable industry. Until recently, you could only get live TV from cable and on-demand from online services, but now the lines are blurring and more affordable packages are being released from various newcomers to the TV industry. From giving numerous advantages to shaking up the traditional model, let’s look at what live TV streaming is doing to the media industry.

Why Cut the Cord

Cable cutters have a few complaints about cable, two of which are the most common. The first and definitely most prominent is money. No one likes spending $100 or more on cable channels, especially if they aren’t even watching most of them. The second, too many channels. What sense does it make to have hundreds of channels if you only watch one or two dozen? This not only drives up the price, it’s annoying to surf through channel after channel to find something you want to watch.

Impact on Traditional Cable

While the movement to live streaming is growing, some companies are still ignoring the call. However, some companies are competing by offering smaller packages. This solves the problem of bloated bills from too many channels, but the packages still tend to be more expensive than live TV streaming.

DirecTV is directly competing by offering live streaming packages of their own. These companies understand where the market is going and they want to improve their position with customers. While still more expensive, they are giving you the other benefits while also giving customers access to many of the best channels.

Other cable companies are actually increasing their prices to make up for the lack of customers. While this certainly helps them make more money, it seems like a short-term and short-sighted approach that punishes those still loyal to the traditional system.

Three of the biggest cable providers, Optimum, Verizon and Xfinity, now provide on-the-go viewing. They rarely include all of the channels that you can access through your TV, but the biggest and most popular channels are often viewable. This includes stations like ESPN, HBO, Starz, Cartoon Network and so on.

However, the problem is that you still need a full subscription to get this benefit. This means you have to pay full price to stream your favorite channels. While some will be OK with this because they are able to both stream on-the-go and have the huge selection of channels, it still means that you have a large bill for your TV.

It’s obvious that live streaming is starting to take a toll and that the market is shifting towards a more mobile experience.

Top Streaming Companies

As this trend has become more popular, several companies have appeared that are really taking the industry by storm. The most popular live streaming services are Hulu Live, Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, YouTube TV and Fubo TV (mostly for Spanish-speaking channels).

Without getting too much into detail, most of these services are fairly similar with only small differences here and there. They all provide a good number of channels, typically about 25-50, and at prices significantly lower than traditional cable subscriptions. Most of these services rely on streaming from a mobile or media device, but as these are commonplace and are found in most homes, it means that you can have your TV with you at all times.

The channel packages are typically customizable, usually consisting of one or two larger packages and then some supplemental packages to add even more channels. You may be able to record shows depending on the service, and premium channels like HBO can often be added on.

The live TV streaming movement is gaining steam and it’s grown to the point where traditional companies are starting to make moves to keep their customers and market positions, and some are even predicting that traditional cable may soon be gone.